It would "sometimes boot" because it was an intermittant problem with the HD itself. The problem has appearantly finally went from intermittant to permanent. Also, I really don't think it is a problem simply with what is on the drive. Fdisk will not even acknoledge the presence of the drive. It says "No fixed disk present". I also don't hear the drive physicaly "spin up" anymore, or the read/write arm moving, although with the drive out of the system, the read/write arm can be heard flopping aroung with the slightest movement. No, it wasn't subjected to shock. As far as the warrenty, it has long expired. I checked with Tigerdirect, and found prices ranging from app. $60 for a 20GB, to app. $160 for an 80GB drive. Anybody know of a better place to look?

Hard drives can cause intermittent fails as well as Any electronic component. They have a circuit board responsible for operation. Ive froze them before and pulled data prior to them totally failing. Just a note..

ALso.. Replacements on E-bay seem to be the way to go money wise.. Look for a steal and bid at the last second!

Yeah, I thought about E-Bay, but I don't know that I want to take the chance on something like a harddrive. Oh, well, we'll see.

Hey Icanfixit...

I thought I was the only one that packed drives in blue ice to keep them working long enough to recover the data...

It may seem dumb but it sure does work with a drive that fails after it warms up...

Your hard drive is definently fried. I had the exact same thing happen to my IBM T22. I got it for xmas. A few months later, the drive blew. I was lucky to get my data before I couldn't boot it at all. I called IBM and they sent me a new one. It might be the same with dell.

good luck calling IBM now, lol. They long gone.

This is true! The freeze trick has been around a long time.. You must be an old timer? (joke)..

lol yea I didn't know about that trick when mine went in the T22. I learned about it long after the fact. IBM shouldn't of sold their PC line. I'll never buy another one from them again! Time to look at Dell or some other company (preferably one in the US)

Yeah, i had a hard drive that acted screwy like that too & it was all because i had the computer too close to a heat register.